Bush's Hamas Challenge

Bush's Hamas Challenge

In his State of
the Union Address, President George W. Bush characterized radical
Islam as "one of the main sources of reaction and opposition" to
freedom. He went on to note that "the perversion by a few of a
noble faith into an ideology of terror and death. Terrorists like
bin Laden are serious about mass murder... They seek to impose a
heartless system of totalitarian control throughout the Middle
East, and arm themselves with weapons of mass murder." True.
True.

Unfortunately,
one such radical Islamist terrorist organization recently received
democratic legitimacy -- with U.S. help. On January 25, the Islamic
Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, won elections in the
Palestinian territories. It was clear to many observers - American,
Israeli and Palestinian, that Hamas was going to score big. But the
Administration had given its blessing to Palestinian parliamentary
elections. It disregarded history of totalitarians winning
elections, from the Algerian Islamist FIS movement in 1992, to the
Nazi victory in Germany in 1933. However, there are normative
standards that should apply to any potential participant in a
democratic process.

Numerous
signals from the Palestinian Authority -- which wanted to postpone
elections -- were ignored. Meanwhile, the U.S. steamrolled Israel,
which protested Hamas' participation in the elections despite the
clear demand in the Quartet's Road Map for all participants to
disarm and renounce violence.

Attempts to
impose such substantive criteria on political actors in the Middle
East now, after the fact, are like closing the doors of the barn
after the horse has escaped. While democratic processes, including
elections, are important, procedure cannot trump substance. Policy
influence by democracy crusaders in Washington has already
contributed to a victory by Islamist forces in Iraq, a stellar
electoral performance of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt,
and the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah joining the
government in Lebanon without disarming. The Hamas victory should
be a catastrophic event that forces reassessment of policy in the
Middle East.

When promoting
democracy, U.S. foreign policy practitioners should always keep in
mind the following criteria which need to be applied to potential
political actors.

First,
participants in the political process should be pluralistic,
democratic and non-violent. They should recognize full minority
rights, women's rights, and, where relevant, the right of Israel to
exist in secure borders. While a political party can be Islamic and
democratic, such as the ruling AK Party in Turkey, the U.S. cannot
tolerate ? party that preaches violence or denies the rights of
significant parts of the population (Christians, Jews, women,
etc.). Totalitarian Islamist movements should be allowed to run
only when it is clear that they do not radically change the
political equation and cannot capture power.

Furthermore,
support of democracy should serve long-term U.S. national interests
in the region, including international security, advances in
fighting terrorism, access to energy resources and strategic
waterways, and support of allies. When election outcomes jeopardize
such vital American interests, the support of democracy needs to be
weighed against other U.S. concerns.

Civil society,
rule of law, protection of minority rights, freedom of speech and
worship, and other individual rights are all part of democracy.
Legal norms and political culture influence the recognition and
exercise of these rights. While President Bush is correct in saying
that democracy in the Middle East will not resemble ours, one needs
to recognize the length of time it took Western, and especially
Anglo-Saxon, societies to develop thriving democracies -- from the
Magna Carta to the American Revolution to the Civil Rights
Movement. One cannot expect democracy in the Middle East to spring
like a jinni from the bottle. Democracy development takes
time.

Finally, terror
and institutionalized hatred should annul popular ?nd international
legitimacy gained at a ballot box. An examination of the charters
and other literature of Hamas, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah or the Muslim
Brotherhood, a survey of the transcripts of their imams' sermons
and statements by their leaders amply demonstrate that these are
totalitarian entities which aim to deny the basic civil rights of
even their own supporters. In fact, following Sayyed Qutb, the
Moslem Brotherhood chief ideologist and Sheikh Nabhani, the founder
of Hizb ut-Tahrir, they deny democracy as a Western invention,
while taking full advantage of it, just like the Nazis and
communists did.

Radical
Islamists' raison d'etre is to wage jihad
("holy" war) against "infidels", especially the United States, and
other "non-believers". They advocate reducing the status of these
"non-believers", including the imposition of a special head tax,
jizyah, on
Christians and Jews, and forced conversions for Hindus and others,
as well as the subjugation of women. They exploit children as young
as five to brainwash them into becoming homicide bombers. Their
goal is the establishment of a state based on Shari'a law leading
to a global Califate (world-wide Islamist religious
dictatorship).

President Bush
is right to promote freedom and democracy in the Middle East and
around the world. However, the U.S. needs to do so realistically,
taking into account its own national interests, as well as the
complexity of foreign political cultures and traditions.
Demonstrating a healthy respect for the limits of its own power and
for the history, religions and politics of the Middle East can only
do America good.

The U.S. and
its allies should not be dealing with a Hamas-dominated Palestinian
Authority or other popularly elected jihadi entities, and should
not provide them with diplomatic recognition, direct or indirect
economic assistance, or other forms of international legitimacy.
The U.S. and the West should lead the fight against radical
Islamists and support Israel in any self-defense measures she may
be forced to take to protect herself against Hamas'
terrorism.

Ariel
Cohen is research fellow for Russian and Eurasian
studies at the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for
International Studies at the Heritage Foundation.